Live data from Hacker News

Google vs. the Open Web

interpeer.io

191–200 of 207 posts

Re: Google vs. the Open Web

#191
post #101
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are this paranoid about someone showing ads or collecting your information, maybe Brave isn't the best choice, with their history of getting caught with both hands in the cookie jar. Especially since you already use Firefox elsewhere. Mozilla also collects information btw.

I have another level of blocking : AdGuard Home. I know that there is no optimal solution. I do the best I can with what I have.

It wasn't meant as criticism. Doing something is better than nothing. Of course the irony is that the more you do the easier it gets to fingerprint and track you with cookieless technology. I've been there and given up. The best solution in my opinion is to blend in and hide in the masses while blocking the worst offenders. I use Firefox with uBlock and DNS blocking in my firewall (OPNsense).

I participated in an experiment that tried to fingerprint without cookies over time. All browsers failed but Firefox did best (for me). So that's what I use.

Re: Google vs. the Open Web

#192

How can a bot create fake impressions? When a bot (or just a simple program) makes a http request he fetches the raw html code only. AFAIK if you don't actually render the html code in a browser or requesting all the contents afterwards again with http requests (like GET ad.jpg, GET logo.png etc.), no google ad server should be hit. Now you could argue that bots could inflate the popularity of a website and therefore…

Don't nail me down on this but I think since nowadays' websites are often dynamic, you most likely have to employ headless browsers in order to do whatever it is you want to do. This should then result in fake impressions.

Good point. Haven't thought about that.

Re: Google vs. the Open Web

#193
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I almost never see meaningful detail regarding what is collected and what it’s used for. Is Google’s collection equivalent to Brave’s, or to Firefox’s? I’d be very surprised if there were not significant differences between what is collected here. Comments like this draw a false equivalence between the three.

That's a bit of a strawman since I don't compare the three. I only compare Firefox and Brave. Of course Google is collecting the most data out of those and the tracking is worse, especially since they have other data points to compare it with. However, according to my logic using Brave + Firefox simply must cause more data to be collected than using only one of the two, no?

I use different browsers for different websites / web applications. For bank or accounting, for example I use Firefox in a container. I configured Firefox to clear everything on closing : cache, cookies, history.

I don't save the passwords in the browser. I keep them in Vaultwarden, installed locally on a miniserver.

Re: Google vs. the Open Web

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to reach official authorities is a good idea. I will quote and extend part of my call to action I did in an other thread - ban Google all together in your personal life. No chrome and no excuses. Stop the bullshit or leave this profession. Use startpage, duckduck or whatever for searching. - develop with and for firefox and friends only, introduce usability problems for chrome - employ the same tactics as goog…

> - employ the same tactics as google. This is incredibly hypocritical. I would never want to work with or for, or employ, or be friends with or associate myself with someone who blatantly displayed this level of hypocrisy and lack of integrity. This comment is also clearly violating the HN guidelines - it's not intellectually interesting, it's naked political activism.

Political? You are overly optimistic. We wish there would be some notion and attention of the politeia here.

On hypocrisy: Both cancer and cancer surgery are aggressive, doesn't make them the same. Google violated competition laws, we as individuals don't.

Re: Google vs. the Open Web

#195
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hiroshi Lockheimer once confirmed that Fuchsia at this stage (to be exact, 4 years ago) is more of testbed for OS technologies that cannot be readily integrated into Android. It is quite absurd to say that Fuchsia is a competitor against Android. It is more close to Midori with a slightly clearer path to productization.

And in the meantime it landed to the Nest Hubs ... I think Google will try to abandon Android.

Yeah, I think that's the ambitious moonshot at least for Fuchsia team, and Google might hope it to be realized. But it probably also acknowledges that it's a very unrealistic goal. More likely scenario is to gradually replace some important core systems (including its kernel?) with Fuchsia while keeping the overall Android ecosystem.

Re: Google vs. the Open Web

#197

I mentioned this in the other WEI thread and I’ll do it here again: Instead of simply flailing our collective arms around complaining about an evil corporation, has anyone written to the respective competition authorities (such as the FTC in the US or CCI in India) about the potential anticompetitive effects of this proposal?

For developers, insert this JavaScript file to block all WEI-enabled browsers from accessing your website. https://github.com/Young-Lord/fight-for-the-open-web

Re: Google vs. the Open Web

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to reach official authorities is a good idea. I will quote and extend part of my call to action I did in an other thread - ban Google all together in your personal life. No chrome and no excuses. Stop the bullshit or leave this profession. Use startpage, duckduck or whatever for searching. - develop with and for firefox and friends only, introduce usability problems for chrome - employ the same tactics as goog…

> - employ the same tactics as google. This is incredibly hypocritical. I would never want to work with or for, or employ, or be friends with or associate myself with someone who blatantly displayed this level of hypocrisy and lack of integrity. This comment is also clearly violating the HN guidelines - it's not intellectually interesting, it's naked political activism.

[dead]

Re: Google vs. the Open Web

#200

I mentioned this in the other WEI thread and I’ll do it here again: Instead of simply flailing our collective arms around complaining about an evil corporation, has anyone written to the respective competition authorities (such as the FTC in the US or CCI in India) about the potential anticompetitive effects of this proposal?

Trying to reach official authorities is a good idea. I will quote and extend part of my call to action I did in an other thread - ban Google all together in your personal life. No chrome and no excuses. Stop the bullshit or leave this profession. Use startpage, duckduck or whatever for searching. - develop with and for firefox and friends only, introduce usability problems for chrome - employ the same tactics as goog…

> show a popup urging users to download firefox, provide a link to download or page with more explanation.

Has anyone already made a template for this that you can easily include in your website?

Post reply on HN